De Profundis

About this show

Monologue - Wilde writing to his lover from Reading Gaol. Towards the end of his sentence in Reading Gaol, Wilde was agonising over the lack of contact with his lover Lord Alfred Douglas, 'Bosie'. In desperation, he started to write him a letter. A century later, De Profundis remains an astonishing tour-de-force of self-revelation and perhaps the greatest love letter ever written. Alone in his cell, in convicts clothes, Wilde is filled with a torrent of accusation, recrimination and passion, but eventually reaches an extraordinary state of understanding and reconciliation.